The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) publishes various Request For Comments (RFCs). RFCs 2246, 4346 and 5246, the disclosures of which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entireties, relate to a Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol. It states that the primary goal of the TLS protocol is to provide privacy and data integrity between two communicating applications. RFC 4680, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, builds on RFCs 4346 and 5246 to allow a client and/or a server to exchange SupplementalData messages in order to exchange information for decision making purposes. RFC 5878, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, relates to the use of TLS authorization extensions to specify certain authorization formats authorized to be transport using SupplementalData message.
RFC 5878 defines the use of an X.509 attribute certificate (AC) and an assertion composed using the Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) as acceptable authorization formats. The use of these authorization formats limits the devices that can be authenticated to those in possession of X.509, X.509 AC or SAML certificates. The present invention contemplates a need to facilitate authentication of devices where both devices may not meet the authorization format restrictions associated with RFC 5878.